finding the art hidden behind it all

I’ve been doing a lot of sketching over the last year. I love coming up with concepts from my imagination. For this painting I was thinking about how, as we get older, it seems our hearts grow in certain ways (metaphorically speaking). Our families have new additions, and at the same time we lose people as well. We meet more and more people, and we create more and more friendships. I’m not sure why I was thinking about this. I think a lot when I fly on planes, cause I’m not a big talker, so I keep to myself most of the time unless I’m next to one of those people who just HAVE to talk to you. Usually inserting the headphones deters that. 🙂

Anyway, I was thinking about how many people there are in the world while I was flying to one of my destinations. I always have that thought when I fly. It blows my mind how many people there are on the planet. I live in a really remote location, so every time I fly over dense population I just can’t believe that people live so close together. Maybe I’m too much of a hermit, but I’ve really become used to not seeing neighbors. I don’t mean that in a negative way at all either. I really like people a lot, I just like privacy a lot too. Anyway, I digress.

With that many people in the world, I was thinking about how each person is connected to a number of other people, who are then connected to other people and so on and so on. In a way we are all connected somehow, just because someone I know is friends with some other person who is friends with or is related to another person and those links pretty much go forever. So what does that have to do with this painting?

I just think its crazy how over time we make so many connections, and how we care about more and more people over time. When we are babies we rely on our parents and siblings, and as we get older we start to make friends, and new relatives are born. Our hearts are always growing. So with that in mind the painting kind of becomes obvious, with the branches and leaves. I liked the idea of a bird being part of the painting too for two reasons. It just shows how our hearts (or our love/feeling) is connected to other life. And two, a bird flies over the world all the time and sees the connections below (kind of like when I was flying over the country when I came up with the idea).

So that’s the basic idea for this painting. It all started with a basic sketch, and turned into a painting. That’s something I’m going to be doing more of in the near future. Below I did a little time lapse video of this painting. Feel free to watch!

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10 thoughts on “A Forever Growing Heart”

I also love people but when we finally bought a house in a little town in norther Ontario we must have been wearing blinders. We fell in love with the house and bought it (never had a house of our own before) but after being there a while I said to my husband if this were a camping spot I would not have chosen it!! When I camp I like to be alone and not see other campers, but somehow with our house I not only can see my neighbours but I can also hear them and smell them!!! I often refer to myself as this one bird (not sure which one now) that needs about 300 acres of woods around it before it will nest. Well I think I am like that bird!! We have been here going on 6 years now and going no where soon lol. I am grateful for our house (sometimes), my way of coping is to paint. I can escape for hours in my basement studio.
So very grateful that I found your lessons!! Thank you again for sharing them with us.

I love the story behind the painting. Very clever and beautiful and symbolic. I can relate to your need for privacy and becoming lost in thought. I do the same thing and often have people ask me, “You Ok?” LOL.

I love this piece Tim, and the story behind it. Thanks for sharing this.
Like you I have always wondered and been amazed at how many people are in the world. As a child, any trips we made, whether just to town or on our trips to Mississippi my mind was boggled by the population of so many. A country girl, I roamed the mountains and grew up secluded a lot although I had many friends and spent a lot of time with them as well, but I remember even then thinking, just
Too
Many people. How do we do it?
The connections are amazing aren’t they? I’m glad for you that this is the only way you have had to experience it. There is an amazing heart in most of them but there are some who just get pissed when a person disconnects because they aren’t providing them ‘their feed’; a lot of busy bodies which headphones don’t help.
I think, as artists we tend to feel this need for solitude more then others. I hope you never have to experience the fullness of what’s called ‘being in’ to the whole when there are those around who feel that because you are there they own you and your thoughts. But then it does provide entertainment and food for art and writing. I,ve found one can even create a type of orchestration from silly little wayward thoughts or mistakes. Quite amusing. Now I know why I was called back home, NOW.

TIM. I am not as crazy as I sound but I suspect you really do understand the need for the headphones.
Could you imagine if others could get Into your brain, not so much because you think ‘bad’thoughts but because you are ok in there with out a multitude.
Art is one of those places, in that zone, where it is just you and the work and the love of it; I suggest it to any who are struggling with this, and learning to become your own master and to be mastered by none. Painting, I’ve found offers this for me more so then writing and singing follows close behind. Peace

I’ll soon have a computerr to work on again and am looking forward to getting my own animal connection stories going. Maybe I’ll try a few sketches of the racoon and others whom I’ve follow in live with over the past years. Now I’m going to watch your video.
TY,
…dk

I love your thought process. One of the things that I can’t get over when I fly is I”M FLYING ! In this great big thing with probably hundreds of thousands of pounds of weight and we are in the air! I really love flying and I really love pondering things when I’m in flight. Mostly about life because there is so much of it all around us. Lives we are leaving, lives we are going to, Lives in all the places on the way……. makes me feel small but in a good way. I am thankful for your blog, that I get to read about people I resonate with and in that way I don’t feel so….. peculiar… there are others like me 🙂 I love your work, I am a professional water color artist, bored with my medium trying all kinds of things right now. I know you are having a hard time right now… Makes me sad, and I am keeping you in prayer for the next couple of days….I hope you keep your blog up. I love the deep thought process.

About this blog
Hi, I'm Tim Gagnon. Over the past 10 years I’ve worked really hard to become a successful artist. I’ve created a popular site where I teach painting lessons online, have my work in numerous galleries around the US and Canada, and have sold hundreds of paintings all over the world. This blog isn’t about any of that. Here, I am going to venture away from the commercial side of the art world. I hope you join me here while I rant and rave about my struggles, watch as I experiment with new techniques and ideas, and listen as I ramble away about the important things, the unimportant, and the random things in my life. If you want to see the commercial side of my art, it won’t be here, you can find it by googling my name. There won’t be any links to any of the things I sell. This place is for me to express and explore.
I like to write, play guitar, paint, draw, photograph, film… so you can expect to see all of those things while I take a year to explore being an artist.
Thanks for joining me.